Jeffrey Goldberg repeats my own statement that if Palestinianism is valid, so then is Zionism.  One must answer the contradiction why the international community believes that only Palestinian Arabs are entitled to self-determination while believing that Palestinian Jews are not.  Jews were an ancient people already when Mohammad appeared on the Arabian peninsula.  It only makes sense that the Jewish people live near and among their ancient holy sites.  Just because Muslims built their mosques on top of Jewish sites in acts of war, superiority and hubris 1,400 years ago, does not invalidate the indigenous rights of Jews nor the historical entitlement that Jews have earned to rightfully live near, in and amongst their own Holiest sites, tombs, synagogues, and archaeological remnants. And let it be known that those remnants, artifacts and actual buildings that are being revealed and discovered almost every week by scientists and archeologists prove Jewish preeminence in the land and region.

Archaeology is the veracity that Muslims won’t tolerate which is why the Muslim waqf discards all debris and dirt without sorting it while it cowardly digs out dirt underneath the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem for fear that Jewish artifacts will be discovered proving the preexistence of the Jewish people thousands of years before Mohammed was ever born. Via DailyAlert from michaeltotten.com:

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly said in an interview:

* “The settlements aren’t the central question. They’re a tragedy in part because they obscure the central question of this conflict. The only question is: can the world of Arab Islam accept the idea of Jewish national equality?…The Six-Day War wasn’t started because of the settlements. If you study the history of the last one hundred years, you’ll see that this [accepting Jewish national equality] is the central animating cause of the conflict. And I don’t see much evidence that Arab Islam can assimilate this idea right now.”

* “The question of Israel is the question of what happens to all minorities in the Middle East. The Arab Muslim Middle East has 300 million people. It has a very hard time treating Coptic Christians with equality, treating Maronites in Lebanon with equality, treating Southern Sudanese in an equal way, treating Kurds in an equal way, and dealing with Jews – not only in their national expression, but even as minorities within their own countries. There was never a golden era for Jews who lived in Arab countries.”

* Q: You have talked to Hamas people. Should the Israelis or Americans talk to them?

Goldberg: “I don’t know what they’d get out of it….People in the United States find it hard to understand how people in Hamas and Hizbullah think. It’s alien to us. The feverish racism and conspiracy mongering, the obscurantism, the apocalyptic thinking – we can’t relate to that….We’re talking about whole societies that are captive to this kind of absurdity.”

* “Just because a belief sounds ridiculous to you doesn’t mean it’s not sincerely held. So I think it’s best to err on the side of taking people at their word….I believe Hamas when it says it wants to eradicate Israel….Why not? Palestinians, over the years, have proven that they’re willing to sacrifice generations of people to achieve their goal of a Jewish-free Palestine.”

* “Arabs are misreading history if they believe Israel is a temporary phenomenon. Nothing like this has ever happened in history. A dead tribe came back and seized the land it had, and did so after a devastating tragedy. Jews are also good at waiting, apparently. They’re a small group, but there’s a survival impulse that’s embedded in many Jews, and certainly in the Jews of Israel today. It says: ‘You want to wait? We’ll wait, too.’ Jews were an ancient people already when Mohammad appeared on the Arabian peninsula.”

* “I’m negative about the intentions of Palestinians. If their goal were statehood, they could have had statehood. Therefore, you have to give serious credence to the idea that their goal is not statehood, that it’s more important to rid the Arab world of Jewish nationalism than it is to have a Palestinian state that would improve the lives of individual Palestinians now.”

2 Responses to “The Real Quagmire in the Middle East”

1. Tang Says:
   July 11th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

   I worry that the framing of “if Palestinianism is valid, so then is Zionism” suggests a moral equivalence between the two when the two are far from equivalent. Zionism is a progressive ideology which calls for a Jewish-led state that respects the rights of non-Jews and accepts them as equal citizens. The Palestinians are a reactionary movement, born out of the basic racism of early 20th-century Arabs not wanting to live next to Jews, which calls for a racially pure Palestine (the current generation adding “under Shari’a law”) as part of the Greater Arab Nation.

   The point stands that anybody who supports the Palestinians while opposing Zionism is a hypocrite, an idiot, or a racist, with a good chance of all three being the case.

2. smoothstone Says:
   July 11th, 2009 at 9:48 pm

   You make an excellent point, Tang, thank you.
   I have presented my “if Palestinianism is valid, so then is Zionism” the way I have all these years because I have come to believe that people – out of ignorance or laziness or bias – don’t analyze the historical situation and therefore don’t come to the correct conclusion that Palestinians are a reactionary movement, born out of the basic racism of early 20th-century Arabs not wanting to live next to Jews, like you said.

   The question then is, what language do we use to tell the ignorant world that Jews are just as entitled to self-determination as Arabs are, even moreso?

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